


What Do I Tell Her?

by greeneyeddancer



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Hurt, M/M, Pain, Violence, ZUKO MY BABY, im super sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29988717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeneyeddancer/pseuds/greeneyeddancer
Summary: “What do I tell her when she asks about him?”Katara reaches forward, her fingertips pressing Zuko’s eyes shut.“We tell her everything,” she whispers, and Sokka falls apart.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 132





	What Do I Tell Her?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys. I can't believe this is the first thing I actually post but I guess this popped up in my head and became something for me to use as a vessel for a lot of really messed up things that are happening in my life. I really love this fandom and I read it constantly as a way to find comfort in my daily struggles but I needed and outlet and this was it. I have every intention to write much nicer, happier, over all better stuff in the future but I've always believed that if you don't at least try, you never can succeed.  
> Sorry again! Like, I am so, super sorry. Heed the warnings, this does not end well and it does not start well.

Katara arrives too late. She's not sure even someone residing in the neighboring room would have arrived in time.

There are bodies everywhere, more than she can count in the mere moments she has. There are a lot though, too many, more than she's ever heard reported in any of the other assassination attempts over the last 5 years. There's so much blood that she can't tell if the decor in the room is red or if it's just stained that way. She’s known bloodshed, pain, and death from a very young age, but the scene before her makes the dinner she ate just hours ago work it’s way up her throat and her vision blur until she’s not sure if she can remain standing.

"Dear Agni," she whispers, one hand going to rest protectively on her swollen stomach, the other grasping the doorframe in a death grip.  
Sokka is right in the center of the mess, his sword strewn to his left, blade coated in crimson. There’s ash coating his bared chest, the sheets on the bed behind him nothing but soot. There’s no active flames, no remnants of Zuko’s power and the thought resonates in the back of Katara’s mind that whatever fire was there went out a while ago.

“Sokka.” His head snaps up, blue eyes filled with tears. She can see the tracks down his cheeks and the blood staining his lips and teeth. His hair is loose and tangled - he’s been beaten, nearly killed.

“‘Tara, please,” he whimpers, his voice is hoarse and she’s certain he’s been shouting. He coughs and Katara’s not sure if it's the smoke in the air filling his lungs that makes his voice heavy or if it’s the tears lodged there. “Please, h-he needs you.”

There’s no doubt about it. Zuko needs help, he needs more help than she can offer and she’s not sure anyone, even if there were a better healer in this world than her or even a hundred healers just like her, could save him. Even from so far away, Katara can see that there’s no life to save.

“Sokka,” she says again. She doesn’t know how to tell him but she can see it on his agonized face that he knows. God, she wishes Aang were here. Maybe he would know what to do. Her own eyes can’t help drifting down to Zuko’s limp form, the eyes that aren’t quite open but show enough iris for Katara to know there’s no spirit.

“Don’t!” Sokka shouts, and the power in his voice scares Katara half to death. She holds her middle, weaker than she’s ever been in her life. She’s never feared her brother, she’s stood tall against every adversity before her but right now she feels she knows nothing. She’s hardly scared of him. She’s scared for him.

Frankly, she’s scared for herself. She’s not sure that in the moments following she’ll be able to do what her brother needs her to do. She can tell now there’s no doing anything, but even so, she’s not sure she can lay her hands upon skin that has always run warm, but will surely be as cold as the air in their home village.

“Sok-”

“Stop!” His voice reverberates through the room and the guards standing behind Katara flinches. There are many standing in the hallways, watching, waiting. Some are coated in just as much blood as Sokka is and some are clean and ready with weapons and fire to help. She wonders how many died trying to save their Fire Lord.

Sokka is actively crying again, arms flexing and bringing Zuko as close to his body as humanly possible. He starts speaking in a voice so low Katara can barely hear him but she’s certain she can hear words from their native language. His lips are close enough to brush Zuko’s lax face.

It’s the closest she’s ever seen them. Everyone knows Sokka and Zuko have a love greater than anyone else, greater than the Avatar and the strongest waterbender, though it’s never been said aloud. While Zuko has fought it from year one of his leadership, the disgusting laws of the Fire Nation have yet to make their shift. They keep it quiet, but the guards in the palace turn their eyes in the right direction and Sokka’s things reside in the correct room.

Katara’s baby gives a mighty kick and she grabs hold of herself tight wondering if he knows - there’s no doubt in her mind the baby is a boy - how scared she is. Her mind wanders to Mai, halfway across the palace with her own newborn child to care for, and hopes to god that Ty Lee is close enough to home to be there when word rings out through the nation that their leader has been murdered.

“Help him!” he pleads, but when Katara drops to the floor in front of them, the blood pooled around them - she knows it’s Zuko’s - soaks into the fabric of her nightgown and Sokka flinches when she tries to touch them. “‘Tara. He won’t talk to me. He-he was but he won’t anymore.”

Katara’s not sure what to say and usually she knows what to say. The thing about her and Sokka is that they talk to fill the space around them. But right now there’s nothing. Her heart beats faster than she thought possible and while she’s always been able to stand for herself, she desperately wishes Aang hadn’t left earlier today to deal with agricultural disputes in the Earth Kingdom.

“He’s sleeping,” he whispers, dropping his lips to Zuko’s. “He has to be right? He’s had worse than this. The-the-the lighting! You-uh-you saved him-him from that! I can see it! I can see his scar right now! He-he was okay! He can survive this too! He just needs to sleep.”

Katara places her hand on Sokka’s arm and he jerks away. Zuko’s body sways like a ragdoll, his head lolling to rest against Sokka’s chest. Katara hasn’t needed to throw up this badly since the beginning of her pregnancy when she’s certain she lived at least a month in a bathroom.

Sokka continues talking and while it hurts her to hear him speak like this, she’s at least grateful he can. “The-the-the dagger.” He’s never stuttered. He heaves and she thinks maybe he’s the one that’s going to vomit. “I told him not to touch it but he did anyway.”

Katara can see where the blade penetrated, just left of Zuko’s breastplate. She tries desperately to look at him as she would any other warrior but he’s practically her brother-in-law and at least last time he had a pulse, no matter how erratic it had been. She’s pretty sure her thoughts are racing faster than the words coming out of Sokka’s mouth. She can’t keep up with what he’s saying but if he keeps talking maybe she can pull Zuko away from him.

The dagger lies beside them. The fabric wrapped around it is tinted black, the place where Zuko must have gripped burnt to a crisp.

“Sokka,” she says again, trying to push as much authority into her voice as possible but hearing the waiver nonetheless. She remembers when he would tell her she wasn’t his mom and she reaches inside of her for that angry, bossy voice but doesn’t find it. She wants to weep as loudly as he is. She’s saved so many people before, but she cannot save Zuko now.

“No,” he says, and it’s quieter now. “No.”

“Sokka.” His name sounds strange on her lips now and she reaches forward to grab hold of Zuko. Just as she thought, his arm is cold and she thinks, this time the fire that burns inside of his is actually gone.

“No.” Sokka sounds so weak and a sound resonates from deep inside his body that reminds Katara of the sound their father had made when he realized their mother had been taken from them.

He doesn’t let go of Zuko and Katara doesn’t try to take him anymore. The guards had called for a healer and she can feel them watching them from behind, can feel their presence lingering though their eyes are turned away from the scene before them.

Sokka presses his lips to Zuko’s forehead and rocks back and forth, Zuko’s long hair, down from it’s usual topknot brushing back and forth, back and forth, across the floor.

“What do I tell Izumi?” Sokka asks, looking at Katara with pleading eyes.

Katara presses her lips together, letting go of the tears that have clouded her vision. Izumi is only 3 months old but Zuko has hardly left her side since the day she was born.

“What do I tell her when she asks about him?”

Katara reaches forward, her fingertips pressing Zuko’s eyes shut.

“We tell her everything,” she whispers, and Sokka falls apart.


End file.
